Small-Sample Corrected Akaike Information Criterion: An appropriate statistical tool for ranking of adsorption isotherm models

► Small-Sample Corrected AIC properly ranked adsorption models. ► Small-Sample Corrected AIC is sensitive to very close model performance. ► Modifying Bentonite influenced the fitting pattern of adsorption models. ► Number of parameters in each adsorption model is important for their ranking. ► Conventional adsorption isotherm models (Freundlich and Langmuir) gave better fits.